Parent company Google has made an offer to acquire Fitbit

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has reportedly made an offer to acquire American smartwatch maker Fitbit. This is reported by Reuters news agency citing several sources.

According to Reuters sources, there is no certainty that the negotiations between Alphabet and Fitbit will ultimately lead to a successful acquisition and the amount offered is unknown. Based on its own source, CNBC also reports that Alphabet has made an offer for Fitbit. Alphabet and Fitbit have declined to comment.

With this acquisition, Alphabet probably wants to strengthen its position in the market for smartwatches and specifically fitness trackers. Fitbit makes fitness trackers, among other things, and in August introduced the Versa 2 smartwatch and a paid subscription service called Fitbit Premium. This service, which runs via the Fitbit app, includes personalized training advice, a variety of exercises and more extensive health reports. Fitbit’s products work on both Android and iOS.

Google has had the Wear OS operating system for several years now. Fossil and LG, among others, make use of this, but Samsung, for example, sticks to its own Tizen. At the beginning of this year, Google already spent 40 million dollars to acquire wearable technology and part of Fossil’s R&D team, although it is unclear what kind of technology that is.